


Losing Life

by orphan_account



Category: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom, Zero Escape (Video Games), Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Fandom
Genre: Gen, SEVERE WARNINGS: Death; Suicide, Warnings: 999 spoilers; VLR spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 11:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2227155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your sister disappears, things can get a little bleak.</p><p>Written for 999 Week 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing Life

 Clover’s disappearance had destroyed Light from the inside out.

 When Light had first received news, he’d been discussing plans with a small group of SOIS members, until he’d been interrupted mid-sentence by the sound of a slamming door. Angrily, he’d swung his head in its general direction, mustering up the closest thing to a glare that a man with closed eyes  _could._ A jittery, unfamiliar voice had, eventually, announced its presence. Admittedly, ‘announcing its presence’ had amounted to nothing more than a stilted series of “uh”s and “um”s.

 Pursing his lips, Light had demanded a reason for the interruption, eventually receiving an answer after a long, incredibly long pause. It was not an answer he would have expected, and it froze him in his place.

 It took a long, very long time for him to recover from the news. Light had been sat down into a nearby chair by another member, a kind older woman whom he’d become rather fond of, and for what felt like decades he sat immobile, barely processing noises around him. People were bustling, yelling, making all sorts of noise as the building erupted into chaos. Two of their elite-ranked members had gone missing, and near everyone was either trying to figure out what had happened, or secure the location of the rest of their agents.

 When he came to, Light had been sitting in that chair for a long, very long time. He figured he'd probably fallen asleep at some point, but he couldn't be sure. The room had quieted down, at least, although he doubted the rest of the building was as quiet as it was in here. 

 It took him a few moments to realize what had roused him from his state - someone was gently shaking his arm, although he had no idea who this someone in question could possibly be, nor how long they'd been there for. Only one way to find out, Light supposed, as he gently pulled away the arm they'd been holding onto, turning slightly to face them. He probably looked horrible, but he really couldn't summon the effort to care about it.

 "What? What is it? This had better be important," His voice was, even to him, shockingly empty. Light had thought that perhaps he could hold himself together well enough to appear composed, but it seemed that even his body was working against him.

 The voice that responded was meek and feminine, but slightly familiar in a way that Light could not place. "O-oh, um, Mr. Field... I-I'm very sorry to disturb you, but they're planning a last minute meeting in the Seminar Room 4 and they want you to be in attendance. Would you like me to, um, lead you there?" 

 Light turned away briefly, contemplating whether or not he could simply avoid it, before deciding that the SOIS security probably end up turning into an annoyance if he tried skipping the meeting. Slowly, he stood up, making his best attempt at flattening out his suit before turning back in the general direction of the younger woman with a small, vague smile. "Oh... Yes, of course they'd want me to attend, and I would appreciate your assistance. I don't believe I caught your name, but thank you...?” Light knew full well where Seminar Room 4 was, but with the state he was in at the moment he wouldn’t mind her directions. It gave him the opportunity to talk and keep his mind off current matters, at the very least.

 He heard her shuffle around before answering, only then realizing he’d perhaps been more than a little tactless by admitting he had no idea who she was. He hoped she would excuse him due to the situation, but perhaps that would be too high of a hope.

 “O-oh, um, sorry, I’m Ennea. Ennea Kashiwabara? Hazuki Kashiwabara is my mother, of course…” She paused once more, no doubt fidgeting. “B-but, um, why don’t we head along? We shouldn’t hold them up.”

 Light nodded in agreement, cursing himself for failing to recognize her earlier. There was no fixing mistakes, unfortunately, so Light simply chose to forget about the awkward confrontation, following Ennea at a slow pace. He was finding it difficult to bother putting effort into anything, but Light reassured himself that this was simply some sort of false alarm, that they’d just made a mistake, and that Clover was fine.

 That’s what he told himself, at least.

 They walked through the halls in a silence punctuated by the sounds of shoes clicking on tiles for a long, long few minutes, before Light eventually spoke up, attempting to rouse himself from the depressing thoughts.

 “So… Ennea, yes? How are your mother and sister doing? It’s been quite a while since I’ve spoken to either, it seems.” He cast a wry smile, remembering how much of a pain her mother had the tendency to be, although thankfully her children seemed to have none of her impatient and bossy characteristics.

 She replied in a fond voice, evidently glad to both be able have a casual conversation during such a rough time, and to talk of her family. "Oh, well, Nona, she's currently working overseas in Northern Europe. We're working on long-distance morphogenetic field communication, and right now SOIS has managed a shaky communication to Brazil from here, and since, well, we're a bit stronger than  _that_ pair, and since Nona had to go to Europe anyway, we figured what the hell, right?" She let out a small laugh, her love for her sister apparent. "We haven't had too much luck yet, but we're gonna hope for the best during the next few weeks. And, well, Mom, she's out on a vacation in Hawaii right now. She'd kept complaining about that whole Nonary Game fiasco, and she was kind of mad with us for never fully explaining that first time, right? And, well, to be honest, we'd kinda been saving up some money for a while to get her a special present, but since we got that big sign-on bonus with SOIS, well, we ended up just sending her out on a vacation for her birthday. She was really happy, and me n' sis were really glad to see that."

 Listening to Ennea go on about her happy relationship with her family was enthralling, and Light couldn't help but smile. Unfortunately, he couldn't continue on with the conversation, as Ennea stopped suddenly, now a sadder tone to her voice.

 "Oh, um, Mr. Field? We're at the Seminar Room, so I-I should probably leave you to your own business..."

 "Of course, thank you very much, Ennea. Oh, and, by the way - I insist that you drop the formalities, simply "Light" is fine. I'm not as much of a stick in the mud as some others around here that I could name, hm?" He smiled once more, and although he had no idea of how tired his face looked, he hoped it seemed friendly.

 As Light entered into the room after a brief exchange of goodbyes to Ennea, he was made uncomfortable by the fact that any chatter in the room had disappeared as he'd entered. He elected to ignore this, assuming they would resume after a brief moment, but the room stayed deathly silent as he stood in front of the doors.

 Eventually, a security guard approached him, whispering directions into his ear. As it turned out, he would be taking part in this meeting more than he'd initially assumed, and thus would be sitting at the main table. Light was in no ways comfortable with this, but he had no say and he feared any arguments at such a time would simply label him as delirious.

 The meeting turned out to be more or less what Light had suspected, although they focused on his thoughts more than he would have liked. He was later brought up to speak at the head of the table, confronted with a barrage of questions by a pushy, and apparently insensitive, man.

 “Mr. Field? You are the older brother to the now declared-missing special agent Clover Field, correct?”

 “You are correct, yes. I should have thought that easily apparent?” He knew they bore no resemblance to one another, but Light was tired, and wanted no part in this pointless charade.

 “And, Mr. Field, reports claim that you have not seen your sister since this morning. Can you explain in detail?”

 “Clover simply drove us both here, before we parted to separate work areas. I to the labs, and Clover went to meet Special Agent Alice.”

 “From where did you two drive from? Was there anyone suspicious you noticed, en route?”

 “Our apartment, although I doubt that has any importance to this matter. As for your second question, I’d like to know how you think a blind man could  _notice_ someone suspicious.” From the crowd, a scattered snickering arose.                                                                                      

 The questions paused, briefly. It was evident that Light had none of the information they wanted, however he found it more than a tad ridiculous that he’d been asked so many pointless questions. If they wanted hints, he had none.

 "Now, if we're finished...?" Light craned an eyebrow, hopeful that he could get this over quickly.

 "Unfortunately, Mr. Field, I have a few more questions for you. Is it possible, perhaps, that it was yet another blunder by Ms. Clover? We have a report on another recent incident, where she was captured due to personal foolishness-"

 Light stiffened, slamming his palm down to the table, and spitting as he interrupted in what couldn't be described as anything less than a venomous tone. "How- How  _dare_ you! How dare you insult my sister like that--! You're saying that this was  _her_  fault? Well,  _pray tell,_ where was the security? Why are we wasting time here, asking me pointless questions? If I knew anything, anything at  _all_ about where Clover could possibly be right now, you'd better believe me when I say that I'd be out there right now, looking for her!"

 The room was still, and an even heavier silence had descended than when he'd walked in. It took Light several moments to recover himself, breathing heavily as he pulled back his hand and straightened his posture.

 "I believe we're done here,  _Sir._ " Carefully, but at a quick pace, Light made his way out of the room, ignoring the people who were yelling after him.

 Once he exited, he stopped immediately, leaning against the doors. He was exhausted, and although he felt ridiculous for losing his temper at such simple jabs, he knew he had all the justification for it. 

 It didn't take long before Light heard someone approaching from down the hall, and he felt his stomach sink with how high the likelihood was that it was someone come to bring him to a higher-up’s office. Their voice, however, reassured him that it was not.

 "Um, hello again! Thank goodness I found you!" It was Ennea, and although Light had no idea why she would have been looking for him a second time, he was relieved to hear her voice. He turned to her, however he now lacked the energy to even force a smile.

 She stopped in front of him, continuing. "Um, well, one of the members from earlier, she said she was in the lab with you this morning, sent out a notice for someone to drive you home after that meeting and, well,  _I_ didn’t have anything really planned for this afternoon, and quite frankly I'd rather get out of here - the atmosphere in here really stinks right now - so I offered to do it!"

 Light was infinitely grateful for her kindness. It was reassuring to have someone he knew, and who wasn't simply pitying him, at a time like this. He nodded tiredly, unable to express himself any better than a soft "Thank you".

 Ennea kept a constant chatter going during the car ride, Light barely even having to speak to keep her going. He was very thankful to have met her of all people today, as she was unbelievably considerate. Mostly, she spoke of her family, however at one point she paused for a long moment, drumming her fingers lightly on the steering wheel - unfortunately, this reminded Light of how often Clover did the exact same.

 "Um... So, uh, Light, I heard a bit about the conference earlier. I'm, well, I'm really sorry that you had to put up with that sort of stuff - those questions were really uncalled for, and I don't blame you for getting mad at him." Light turned his head toward the window, however he stayed silent. "I know that guy pretty well - he's a real asshole all the time, honestly. He used to boss me and Nona around when we were new agents, although if Nona gets this promotion she's trying to get from Europe, she might be able to at least demote him. Hey, with your help, maybe we could even get him out of our building!" Ennea let out a small laugh, however elected not to continue.

 The rest of the ride was silent, however it didn't take long for them to reach his apartment building. Light exited the car silently, politely declining her offer to walk him up. He stood for a moment with the door open, Ennea still sitting in the driver's seat, before giving her one more small smile. "Thank you, Ennea."

 "Of course, it was no trouble at all. I'll be seeing you, Light."

 After she drove off, Light walked, a slow pace, to his building. Making it up to his room was enough of a feat, barely remembering to lock the door before he fell against it, his briefcase dropping with a heavy  _thud._ Light crouched, putting his head in his hands. He had no idea how long he stood there like that, but he barely cared. 

 Light never returned to SOIS.

 He stayed in that apartment for days, never leaving. The few times he ate or drank, he had plenty to take from the kitchen, and although he only ate enough to sustain him, it was the bare minimum. After a few days, he felt nauseous simply from getting up in the morning.

 Any information of the outside world he garnered from the messages left at his phone - of the outbreak on Christmas, how fast it was spreading, how many people had killed themselves already, that no one had even a slimmer of an idea of what this mystery disease was - and then the messages eventually stopped, although Light knew not whether they'd given up on him, or worse.

 Half a month had passed since Clover's disappearance, and she had never reappeared. He'd suspected, briefly, that perhaps yet another Nonary Game had occurred, but neither of the previous ones had ever taken this long and nor did Light have any idea of why they would only take one of them, and thus he dismissed the idea. Of course, this left very few possibilities, none of them pleasant.

 It was too much. His sister, his beloved little sister, was likely dead, because he had been - and still was - useless. To top it off, pandemics were ravaging the planet. Life was, simply said, a living hell. 

 There was no point anymore, of putting up with this. He was a failure, and he had no doubts his sister had met a terrible end thanks to his incapability. In the back of his mind, he recalled the pen that sat upon the table to his right, and without much thought he snatched it into hands he didn't realize were shaking. Slowly, he raised it. His heart pounded, yet before he could have any sort of second thoughts, he suddenly swung his arm full-force toward his neck -

A dull thud rang throughout the room as the man crumpled to the ground, his consciousness dimmed quickly and the dull buzz that had filled his ears for the past week dying along with him. His final thoughts, as he let go of his grasp on life, were grim ones. Death would be not only his solace, but his eternal punishment.

 The apartment fell silent.

**Author's Note:**

> scrapped title: The Author Hates Herself
> 
> "light is fine", i whisper to myself as i write this, "im sure hes fine, along with everyone else not in vlr"


End file.
